asphyxiation

[ as-fik-see-ey-shuhn ]

noun

1. a lack of oxygen and excess of carbon dioxide in the blood, caused by impaired respiration or insufficient oxygen in the air; suffocation:

   The cause of death was severe asphyxiation, apparently from smoke inhalation.

2. the condition of being stifled or suffocated:

   Peripheral countries, faced with economic asphyxiation, are being forced to sell access to their fishing banks for far less than they are worth.

Word History and Origins

Origin of asphyxiation¹

asphyxi(ate) ( def ) + -ation ( def )

Example Sentences

The machine will then fill with nitrogen gas, causing the occupant to pass out in less than a minute and die by asphyxiation in around five.

From MIT Technology Review

Its occupant will pass out in less than a minute and die by asphyxiation in around five.

From MIT Technology Review

Instead, Floyd suffered positional asphyxiation and died on the scene.

From The Daily Beast

Wards had been transformed, in the words of one epidemiologist, into “chambers of asphyxiation.”

From Washington Post

The deputies pinned Saylor to the ground, and he died of asphyxiation.

From The Daily Beast

The victims, all men, died of asphyxiation during the perilous journey from the coast of North Africa to Sicily.

From The Daily Beast

The cause of death may have been asphyxiation, but more tests were needed and will possibly take weeks.

From The Daily Beast

However, the coroner did not rule out gunshot wounds, or asphyxiation as the likely cause of his demise.

From The Daily Beast

Later, forensic exams found a near-fatal dose of heroin in her stomach but determined that the cause of death was asphyxiation.

From The Daily Beast

Skin respiration would account for the extreme resistance to asphyxiation in Amblyopsis and Typhlogobius.

From Project Gutenberg

She sinks, her arms are raised like those of a victim; she sinks overcome, done to death or worse in some horrible asphyxiation.

From Project Gutenberg

I grew dizzy with semi-asphyxiation, and my heart thumped until it seemed surely it would burst the canvas that bound me.

From Project Gutenberg

The circulation of the blood is seriously interfered with and death follows with the usual symptoms of asphyxiation.

From Project Gutenberg

It causes mental, moral and spiritual asphyxiation, and sometimes death—death to energy, death to tissue and death to all growth.

From Project Gutenberg